ANZAC: THE GREEK CHAPTER

War documentaries often seek to propagate or reinforce a national myth. When this happens, it is difficult for historians and veterans alike not to act as performative agents, showcasing power or espousing a certain narrative in front of the camera to legitimize themselves.

War documentaries thus form part of a broader documentary conflict, where images, information, and emotional engagement can often be weaponized. This in turn may serve to construct a symbiotic relationship where both historians and veterans collaborate to cultivated a mediated portrayal of the conflict in question, addressing the historian’s quest for control over the narrative, as well as the veterans’  need for recognition. This dynamic reveals both the harsh realities of conflict and but also the overarching predominance of an overarching discourse, portraying veterans not just as soldiers but as architects, albeit forgotten, of a new order, complicating the perception of war and its practitioners as violent and destructive.

Peter Ewer and John Irwin’s fascinating recently released documentary:  Anzac: The Greek Chapter thoughtfully addresses the aforementioned conundrum by their nuanced treatment of their subject matter. Narrated by journalist Barry Cassidy, whose father took part in the campaigns mentioned in the documentary and supported by a number of Greek community organisations, it purports to tell the story of the ANZAC contribution to the defence of Greece during World War II.

This in itself, forms part of the foundational tradition of the post-war Greek community in Australia. While our presence here predates the formation of the Australian state, mediated and controlled as it was by a dominant class that usurped sovereignty from its native inhabitants, it is widely disseminated in our community that the bonds connecting Greece and Australia were forged in the conflagration of conflict and somehow, our esteem in the eyes of those who allowed us to come here, derives from our conduct towards them during the Second World War.

In the documentary, this tradition is analysed via extensive interviews conducted of veterans. Indeed, these interviews comprise most of the documentary, ostensibly permitting the veterans to tell their own story, while also facilitating the viewer to establish an emotional connection with them. All of them describe the Greeks in glowing terms. They are “noble,” they “share food,” old ladies give them “pieces of chicken,” they provide ANZAC troops with a “royal welcome,” they display “typical Greek bravery.” Their generosity is so great that often the veterans narrating their experiences break into tears and cannot continue their narrative. One Greek lady featured in the documentary describes how her mother, risking the execution of her entire family, fed, clothed and bathed a paraplegic ANZAC soldier in a Cretan cave for over two years. She, like the veterans, portrays her mother as a selfless hero.

Both veterans and Greeks therefore seem to collaborate to adhere to a narrative that serves the ideological needs of both parties. While no archival footage or interview attests to the fear of the Greeks, the burden on their families or any resentment felt at having to hide or feed the ANZACS, the directors of the documentary subtly allow the interviewees to interrogate, analyse and ultimately question their own prevailing discourses. Some of the veterans for example, cast their relationship in terms of reciprocity. Greek hospitality was offered because the Greeks were “grateful the [ANZACS] were defending their country.” In this light, the Greek’s brave and selfless care of the ANZACS, while no doubt appreciated greatly, was considered recompense for the bravery and selflessness of the ANZACS themselves. Another veteran couches the relationship within the context of necessity: “They trusted us. They had to trust us.” Is this then a relationship and a subsequent admiration that developed out of a lack of choice? Possibly but this is not at all certain and is refuted by the veterans’ recounting of so many acts of sacrifice by the Greek populace. All of the veterans interviewed express surprise not at the fact that the Greeks cared for them, but at the magnitude of that hospitality and the intensity of the emotional connection they displayed towards them. On the other hand, the veteran who recounts how he witnessed from his hiding place, the execution of over twenty Cretan villages, subverts the narrative of reciprocity. This is after all, the raw reality of war.

Similarly, the country of Greece is described or rather idealised by the veterans, especially after their harrowing service in the deserts of North Africa, as a “paradise,” a “utopia,” or a “heaven.” Words such as “primitive” and “crude” appear to portray a Greece as a colonial backdrop to an imperialist endeavour. This is another area where a discourse forming narrative takes place. The documentary through extensive archival footage, provides valuable broader context as to the Greek campaign: how it came about, why it was necessitated and for what reason ANZAC troops participated. In the considered view of the directors, the ANZAC presence is a type of re-run of Gallipoli: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill did not tell the Australian and New Zealand Prime Ministers that Greece was indefensible and thus the ANZACS were dispensable, sacrificial lambs to his wider strategic concerns.

The directors of the documentary could have weaponised it so as to portray Australian soldiers as virtuous heroes, fighting and giving up their lives so that the preferred order, that of democracy and the rule of law would prevail. They chose not to do so. After all, such an ideological slant is not supported by the testimony of the veterans themselves, who present themselves not as lofty idealists but rather as reluctant heroes, or carefree larrikins, going off to war, for a sense of adventure, to see the world or because it is preferrable to fruit picking. Even here however, the documentary allows for alternative perspectives to emerge, with Aboriginal veteran, the late Reg Saunders poignantly stating: “We have been fighting wars ever since the Whites came.”

Allowing the veterans to narrate the campaigns provides immediacy as well as emotional intensity. From Vevi in the north we follow the ANZAC troops with bated breath south as they valiantly but futilely attempt to arrest and ultimately flee from the Nazi onslaught, our hearts leaping both at their successes and almost predetermined reverses. In Gallipoli, ANZAC troops were placed in a position where they were mere cannon fodder. In Greece, we learn, not only were ANZAC troops not told that their commanders believed that there the prospect of success was non-existent, they were also underequipped and not supplied with the necessary kit to make it through, among other challenges, the harsh Macedonian climate. Learning from veterans that they were forced to did trenches with their tin hats because they were not issued with shovels causes us to feel even more admiration for their steadfastness and their indomitability of spirit. Having already accepted that the overwhelming superiority of Nazi soldiers and materiel doomed the Anzac campaign from the outset, and learning as we do, that the Nazi parachute landing on Crete was completely unexpected, the implication however, is that on an equal playing field, “our” boys would have prevailed and that by enduring privation, displaying the courage that they did under fire, the ANZACS of the Greek Campaign have earned their place in the national myth as equal to the ANZACS of Gallipoli. The veterans’ narrations make it exceedingly hard to argue otherwise.

The documentary’s conclusion is inspired: There is moving footage of the descendants of veterans make pilgrimages to Greece in order to honour their ancestors’ sacrifice, and impliedly, co-opting the Greeks of Greece to do the same. The wreath laying and erection of plaques and monuments has become a common vocabulary between Greeks, Australians and Greek-Australians for the enshrinement of memory and the formation of mutually acceptable rites in which to celebrate and commemorate a particular form of martial valour and inter-ethnic solidarity. Thus two significant purposes are served: Recognition is afforded to soldiers whose particular contribution is no longer fashionable or highlighted adequately in their national narrative while contemporaneously, Greek-Australians who have largely been left out of that prevailing national narrative, gain enough purchase to attempt to entrench themselves within it, legitimising their presence and making claims of validation upon the dominant class.

 “Anzac: The Greek Chapter,” is a thoughtful, sensitive, multi-faceted, well-paced and exciting documentary that provides valuable insights both into our common history but also the formation of our modern identities. A feature of the 2024 Melbourne Greek Film Festival, it should not be missed.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 5 October 2024